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Google Joins FIDO Alliance

A group of technology firms that hopes to leave passwords in the lurch has added a weighty new member: Google.

The FIDO Alliance announced the inclusion of several other new members Tuesday, including Allweb Technologies and four other authentication solution vendors at the Associate Member level, as well as Entersekt and Fingerprint Cards (FPC) at the Sponsor Member level.

Google, as well as authentication hardware manufacturers NXP and CrucialTec, join PayPal, Lenovo, Nok Nok Labs, and Validity on the FIDO Alliance board of directors. The Alliance, formed in July 2012, has a stated goal of fostering interoperability of strong authentication techniques for e-commerce, online communications, and other secure interactions in cyberspace. It hopes that as an interoperable specification for user authentication is developed and adopted, the Internet’s reliance on passwords as a primary authentication factor will diminish.

The effort is supportive of the concept of the identity ecosystem advocated by the White House’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) initiative.

From the press release:

“We are very pleased to count these outstanding global leaders among the ranks of the FIDO Alliance,” said Michael Barrett, FIDO Alliance president and PayPal Chief Information Security Officer(CISO). “FIDO is compelling to those who can lead and affect change, because the open FIDO specifications promise to restore trust with stronger security that also simplifies the user experience and ensures privacy. By overcoming the limits of proprietary authentication methods, FIDO opens up a vast marketplace for strong authentication where FIDO enabled devices and services interoperate. We encourage all who require secure user authentication, and those who provide various methodologies to join us on a very fast track to FIDO universal strong authentication.”